I want so much more for Irish women than abortion on demand

The clear message to a woman who finds herself with an unwanted pregnancy is, “You’re on your own, sister”, writes Victoria White.

I won’t be wearing a Repeal T-shirt.

They’re gorgeous. Anna Cosgrave is a very talented designer.

But I don’t like them. I don’t like the way they brand people. I don’t like the way they simplify the issue.

Well look, they’re a campaigning tool. Campaigning tools brand people and they simplify issues.

But it gets to my gut that anyone would want to brand themselves in this campaign. I suppose the truth is that I suspect some of adopting a simple position on a nuanced and difficult issue in order to signal their own virtue.

I can’t bear the instinct to be one of the pack when the quarry is so unclear.

My problem is that a free abortion regime will not be the spring-board for women into unimagined freedom.

Being able to abort your unborn child in your own country would be cheaper and easier than aborting that child in another country.

It would also represent a coming to terms with reality on the part of this jurisdiction.

That doesn’t take away from the fact that abortion is sad. Definitely less sad than continuing with unwanted pregnancies in many cases, but sad nonetheless.

My huge problem with wearing a Repeal T-shirt is that I want so much more for Irish women than abortion on demand.

I want genuine reproductive rights. That would mean an end to the fear of pregnancy for most women.

Pregnancy is not terribly dangerous nowadays in a country such as ours. Having a baby you didn’t plan or expect shouldn’t destroy any woman’s life in this country in the 21st century.

Being the child of an unexpected pregnancy or a broken relationship shouldn’t consign any child to poverty in this, one of the richest countries in the world.

But it still does. Not always, but often. Children of lone parents are currently 340% more likely to live in poverty than children of intact couples.

This poverty is growing more intense, not less.

The lobby group, SPARKS (Single Parents Acting for the Rights of Their Kids) highlights research showing a 50% increase in the poverty of lone parent families — who were already society’s poorest — between 2012 and 2015.

The rate was static for the rest of the population living in poverty.

They link this damning statistic to the cuts in supports to lone parents carried out from 2012 by the Labour/Fine Gael government.

That’s why SPARKS’ spokesperson Louise Bayliss says she “feels used”, not only by the so-called pro-life movement, but also by the repeal side: “Where were you when Joan Burton cut the income of working lone parents?” she asks them.

“How can you call the movement pro-choice when women aren’t given a viable option to raise a child in dignity on her own in this country? Your choices are to have a termination or live in poverty!”

She says this year’s Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission submission to the UN’s equality enforcers, CEDAW, was full of repeal the Eighth and bodily autonomy but devoted just a few lines to the cuts in supports for lone parents, which she calls “the most gendered cuts in the history of the State.”

Following deputations from John Brady (Sinn Féin) and Willie O’Dea (Fianna Fáil) now-Taoiseach Leo Varadkar committed under the Social Welfare Act 2017 that an independent report into the impact of these cuts would be completed in time to inform this year’s budget debate.

He said that it would be a “breach of the legislation if something went wrong.” According to this newspaper, the Indecon report has been presented to Government in recent days.

It may suggest the partial reversal of some of the 2012 cuts, such as an extension beyond the first seven years of the one parent family payment and an increase in the amount a lone parent can earn without losing benefits.

But it can’t inform debate because it has not yet been made available either to the public or the House.

You’re forced to ask does anyone care about lone parents or their children?

While it is common that an agency collects maintenance from separated fathers across the civilised world there is no such agency in Ireland and none planned.

The payment of maintenance is only enforced until the child is seven — when Joan Burton’s cuts kick a lone parent off one parent family payment and onto jobseekers’ allowance — and about half such parents receive some.

That figure drops to 36% when the child is over seven and a lone parent’s only recourse is to pursue her child’s father through the courts.

If he doesn’t turn up for his court appearance a bench warrant can be issued which often lies there unprosecuted.

Whether or not the lone mother can access the maintenance, her social welfare is deducted at source by the amount the court said she should have, which is at the whim of that particular judge.

Well, if a girl goes and gets herself into trouble she has only herself to blame. Or is that the kind of statement you’ve only heard in some Gothic horror film about nuns and laundries?

The problem with the “choice” movement is that it seems to assume some sort of free choice. But choices are always made in a cultural, societal and economic context.

This context made a lurch forward in Ireland when the first lone parents’ allowances were brought in in the early 1970s but have since edged backwards.

The clear message to a woman who finds herself with an unwanted or unexpected pregnancy is, “You’re on your own, sister.”

The statutory agencies increasingly wash their hands of you and your child — 65% of homeless families in emergency accommodation are those of single parents, despite the fact that they comprise only 19.9% of families.

The rest of society washes its hands of lone parents too. Not just runaway fathers, either. Families. Extended families. Me and you.

The same people who shut their doors on young women and sent them into the arms of the nuns.

We will only get towards a semblance of real choice for pregnant women in this country when they get the unambiguous message that we love them and we will love their children.

I have never supported the Eighth Amendment. I would support abortion on demand for eight weeks and certainly no more than 10. I know it’s a compromise.

It’s a compromise between the undeniable humanity of the foetus, the fact that it lives as an indissoluble part of a woman’s body and the imperfection of life.

It’s always going to be sad. And as long as abortion is the only answer this society gives to any pregnant woman we will not exit the Dark Ages of women’s history.

• SPARKS present a one-day conference on the situation of single parents today in Ireland at Liberty Hall, Dublin on November 3. Details will be posted on their Facebook page